National swimming community remembers former Olympic trainer

Ortolani, 80, head athletic trainer at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kan., died Friday. He spent the better part of the 1970s through the 1980s as an key part of the USA Swimming program.

“We were a very fun organization,” said past Executive Director for USA Swimming Ray Essick. “We hit the road running and the first year we had obligations for 11 trips overseas.

“Prior to that, we were lucky to get a doctor to go on those trips when we were a part of AAU.”

Essick, who lives in Colorado Springs, Colo., started in the leadership post in 1976 and helped bring Ortolani into the mix with USA Swimming.

“I knew what our needs were and we needed a trainer,” Essick said. “Al was one of the first guys on the list and he was fantastically popular with the athletes and his first concern was the athletes.”

Ortolani was the trainer for the 1976, 1980 and 1984 Olympics and was also a consultant for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Essick recalled a trip that Ortolani went on to East Berlin in 1977 with the USA Swimming team to compete against the East German national team.

“During the preceding summer, the East Germans handed us our lunch in Montreal,” Essick said. “We went in with a whole new load of young women that had not proven themselves.”

Among one of the new swimmers was Tracy Caulkins, a swimmer from the University of Florida.

“The meet was so exciting that my job was to get the kids out of the warm-up pool and run interference because they wanted to be with the rest of the team and not with the media,” Essick said. “Our first responsibility was to the kids and Al was under the stands giving rub-downs ... Finally one of the coaches was under there and Al told the coach to get him out of there and we moved all of his equipment to the deck of the pool so that Al could watch the meet because he was going crazy not knowing what was going on.”

The United States went on to defeat the East German team and Caulkins later won three gold medals in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles — where Ortolani was also the trainer for the U.S. National swimming team.

“He was a team member,” Essick said. “He was not just a trainer hanging out doing his job. He suffered with them and did all those things that classic trainers do ... he was also a good friend.”

Essick said that Ortolani made his job easy over the years.

“I had a great advantage because I had coaching experience under my belt and I knew what we needed technically,” Essick said. “I did the classic thing and surrounded myself with talented people and Al was one of them.

“He helped us form the trainers and determined what we needed for each meet,” Essick said. “Al was one of the trainers that was in a leadership position that helped get things done ... plus take care of athletes.”

The current director for USA Swimming said Ortolani will be remembered as a significant contributor to the swimming community.

“Any member of the swimming community who passes away is very sad to us,” said Chuck Wielgus, current USA Swimming director.

It will be the contributions that Ortolani gave the program that will keep him in the forefront of Essick’s thoughts.

“All of swimming is sorry for the loss of Al because of his contributions,” Essick said.

Morning Sun writer Matthew Clark can be reached at matthew.clark@morningsun.net or at 620-231-2600, Ext. 140